Colgate Directory

Albert Ammerman

He is a research professor in the Department of the Classics, and his two main fields of interest are archaeology of the Mediterranean world and placing archaeological sites in an environmental context.

The main focus of his career over the past 40 years has been on research. The topics that he has explored run from the pioneering work that him and Luca Cavalli-Sforza did at Stanford in the 1970s in bringing together human genetics and archaeology, a new field of research, through the work that he is now doing on the origins of seafaring in the Mediterranean.

He has often divided his time between teaching at Colgate for a semester and conducting projects in Rome, Athens, and Venice or more recently on islands such as Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean. In the upcoming Fall 2013 semester, he will be leading the Colgate Study Group to Venice.

He was also the organizer for a meeting, sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, on “Island Archaeology and the Origins of Seafaring in the Eastern Mediterranean,” which was held at Reggio Calabria in October of 2012.

On the evolution of his research interests over the years, please see this profile written by John Bohannon that appeared in Science in 2007. A recent Colgate podcast focuses on Ammerman's examination of saving Venice from acqua alta.

Degree

PhD, Institute of Archaeology in London, 1972; BA, University of Michigan, 1964

Specialties

Origins and spread of agriculture, landscape archaeology, early Rome, development of interdisciplinary studies

Interests

Early seafaring in the eastern Mediterranean, early architectural terracottas in and around Rome, Neolithic transition in Europe

Teaching Experience

Over the years, he has taught the following courses at Colgate: Legacies of the Ancient World, World Archaeology, Archaeology of Italy, Roman Archaeology, Venice: the City on Water, and World Food and Hunger.

He was the O’Connor Visiting Professor of the Humanities in fall 2007 and in spring 2009, and director of the Venice Study Group in 1999 and 2009.

In addition, he has taught in the human biology program at Stanford and at Binghamton University, as well as at the universities of Parma and Trento in Italy.

Publications

Listed below are six of the main topics that he has investigated along with a selection of three publications on each given topic.

1. The first argonauts: The origins of seafaring in the Eastern Mediterranean. (There are plans to publish the proceedings of the Wenner-Gren Workshop on this subject. )

"The first Argonauts: toward the study of the earliest seafaring in the Mediterranean." In A. Anderson and K. Boyle (eds.), The Global Origins and Development of Seafaring. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 81-92, 2010.

"The paradox of early voyaging in the Mediterranean and the slowness of the Neolithic transition between Cyprus and Italy." In G. Vavouranakis (ed.), Seascapes in Aegean Prehistory. Athens: Danish Institute of Athens, in press.